Нұрлы аспанға тырысып өскенсін сен

Рос ты, к небу устремляясь головой

Knowing naught of life’s consuming pain,

Children strain to grow and reach the sky.

So the shoots of spring stretch toward the sun

And the frosts of winter months defy.

But the days go by relentlessly,

And what once you sowed at last you reap.

Oh, to pass through life as does the sun

That each morning wakes, reborn, from sleep!

Worry gnaws despondent at your heart

And, unasked, too soon becomes your mate.

Like a broken ear of wheat you sag

‘Neath the weight of life and sorrow’s weight.

Though you fight the creeping shades of night,

Though you dread to watch the darkness fall,

Yet does death, that cunning thief, approach,

Robbing you, remorseless, of your soul.

Flesh soon turns, for so ’tis ruled, to dust,

 Life is but a dream whose flight we mourn.

What the morrow holds is sealed to sight;

Know: to die, O mortal, were you born!

Translated by Irina Zheleznova